The present moment

Your living conditions and future are determined by what you do in the present moment. Your past and your future do not play a role in the determination. Your past is gone and your future is yet to arrive.

Your past has provided you with valuable lessons which you have learnt and made you a wiser person. Whatever happened in the past cannot be changed. Any regret you have about the past is of no use as the past remains unchangeable. Your worries about the future do not help also. What you worry about may not happen. Whenever you regret about the past or worry about the future, you place yourself out of the present moment.

It is the present that you should focus your mind on at all times. The present is all you have now. No matter what happens to your life, it is always at the present moment. You are living and enjoying your life, as well as suffering the pains in the present moment. You can only be creative in the present moment which is important to you as it is the only time you can use to plan and make decisions for the future.

How often have you allowed your mind to lose control in the present moment as it wanders to the past or future? You are not in control of your mind if you are constantly focusing on the past or future. Instead of having control over your mind, you allow it to control you. When that happens, you are not using your mind in a productive way as you can only be productive in the present moment.

If you can consistently focus your mind in the present moment, you will find you are entirely free from problems. Problems don’t exist in the present moment. They exist only when your mind wanders to the future. All your problems are about the future. How much of your present moment have you spent waiting for the boat trip along the coast that you are going to take next summer or thinking of the job promotion that you are confident of getting or of your child reaching a certain age or of having the desired amount of savings? It is always about the future.

It’s like you want to live in the future and don’t want the present. You are not living, growing and developing. Bring your attention back to the present and you notice you start to live again. When you live in the present moment, you create for the future by whatever you do.

If you look forward to enjoying something in the future, you can’t enjoy it now as the future is yet to arrive. Also, now is the only time that exists and when the anticipated enjoyment arrives, you will have it in the now, no longer the future.